


A Few of Mikkel's Secrets

by Tanist



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: (None of the team, Death, Gen, I swear!), Magic, Mild Horror, Profanity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanist/pseuds/Tanist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Among the many secrets in Mikkel's past is that he knows his old love Alma is in the ruins of Kastrup - but in what shape? He wants to find her. The rest of the crew is concerned about this. And why is he really along on this crazy expedition in the first place?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Few Of Mikkel's Secrets (part one)

**Author's Note:**

> First posting! I'm not experienced at writing fanfic. Or love stories. Generally I write technical articles, poetry or songs. However, SectoBoss made an excellent tale called 'Old Memories', in which he introduced the character of Alma, Mikkel's lover during the attempt to retake Kastrup. When I read it, I began to wonder: what sort of woman would love and be loved by Mikkel Madsen?  
> Alma is described as 'an Icelandic mage who said she could see the future'. Maybe she could, and made her preparations ahead of time. She is a combat mage, so I expect she would be tough, competent, lucky and intelligent. Any woman who took up with Mikkel would need to be as bright as he is, with a robust sense of humour. That's a rare combination. I don't think either of them would necessarily care if the other was pretty, but her being able to keep up with him mentally and physically, and talk with him on his own level would be essential. And I'm not sure why, but I somehow get the impression that Alma is a few years older than Mikkel.
> 
> Many cultures have minor magics similar to the one described in this tale. One of the forms traditional throughout Europe involves the couple either making a pair of amulets or tokens, or breaking one (generally a coin or a ring) and each taking half. There is also a sung or spoken component to the spell. A common English one from a few centuries ago ends "and show him/her in no false array, but where he/she walks, and what he/she wears, and how he/she does, all days and years." A few hundred years ago, there were no mobile phones, few if any mail services, and travel was difficult and dangerous at the best of times, so people tended to worry if their loved ones were out of reach. One's lover might be a soldier, trader, sailor, journeyman or the like; might go off wherever they were going and never be heard of again, leaving partners who didn't know if their significant other had abandoned them and moved to another country, been mugged and murdered five miles from home, or was shipwrecked on a desert island somewhere. Hence the popularity of spells of this type. I figure Minna's world would have similar conditions, and might revert to the old answers. And they do have magic.  
> Bindrunes are often only remembered as the tools used for the nasty compelling sort of love spell, but there were benign uses also.
> 
> Anent the blade-pushed-up-into-the-brain thing, it struck me as something that might be used, say by hunters or scouts, if they saw that one of their companions was infected or beginning to turn, once people realised that trolls/giants needed a 'viable head' to function. Fast, silent, merciful and destroys the brainstem.

For over a week now the weather had been too bad for the crew to go raiding anywhere. A series of gales had swept in from the sea, with sleet and freezing rain. The old roads, which were treacherous enough in fine weather, became impassable when covered in mud and a thin layer of water which turned to slippery ice by late afternoon. Their camp in the Kastrup Fortet seemed secure enough; nothing much triggered their motion detectors, and it was too cold and bleak for trolls or most Beasts to be moving about. Still, Lalli was....uneasy. It wasn't anything he could define; most like a sense of something focusing attention on them from a distance. Perhaps Sigrun felt it too. She seemed jumpy, distracted, as if she kept almost hearing something. 

Sigrun, Reynir and Lalli went out most days to hunt, forage and check their snares, finding an occasional healthy rabbit or hare trapped, and a few small rat-derived beasts which they killed quickly before their noise attracted other, larger, dangers. They dragged reedmace rhizomes and tubers of duck's-potato from the old moat, and harvested half-frozen sanddorn berries and seakale from the beach in the hope that Mikkel might shut up about the risk of scurvy. But whenever their wanderings took them in the direction of the old airport, Sigrun or Lalli would soon turn the foraging party aside, without really understanding their own nervousness. Surely they weren't close enough to wake anything?

Back at the camp the others were occupying themselves with make-and-mend, putting their gear back into condition for the next raid, improvising replacements for small pieces of equipment that nobody had thought to bring, fishing in the moat - the usual distractions of a stalled expedition. At first Mikkel had pitched in cheerily enough, making up interesting games, encouraging Sigrun to tell stories of her adventures, attempting to teach Lalli to draw, checking over their medical supplies and suggesting improvements to field kit, and cooking small treats for the crew. As the days passed, however, he withdrew more and more from the others, seeming to sink deeper into himself, looking increasingly haggard and starting to lose weight. When he snarled at Reynir for asking an innocent question, the others began to watch him, Tuuri with some alarm and affectionate concern; Reynir and Emil with bewilderment, since the healer had until then treated them with an absent-minded kindness tempered by wry amusement at their youth and inexperience; Sigrun and Lalli with worried caution and a touch of fear. Mikkel was a big, powerful man, the tools of his trade could be dangerous weapons, and if he cracked everyone might be in danger. 

Then came the night when a white-faced and trembling Emil shook Sigrun awake and dragged her into the driver's cabin. Mikkel was slumped in the passenger seat. Behind him crouched Lalli, with one hand twisting Mikkel's arm behind his back, the other holding a knife with the point tilted upward against the back of the big healer's neck. Through the fabric of Mikkel's sleeping shirt, something was glowing a sickly green.

"Get Tuuri! Now!" Sigrun hissed. "I want a translator. The scout's strange, but he's not usually homicidal!". Emil raced to rouse Tuuri. He handed her the mask that hung above her bunk, thinking of that weird luminescence. He'd recently seen a glow like that on something they'd killed in a nest, something Lalli had thought might once have been a mage. 

As a half-asleep Tuuri stumbled in, Lalli burst into a frantic stream of Finnish words that woke her as fully as a bucket of cold water in the face. When he paused she asked a question, then another, then turned to the others. "He says that whatever Mikkel has under his clothes is - reaching out?- to something outside, in the direction of the old airport. He says it scares him, and he doesn't like it, and Mikkel doesn't smell infected, which is why he hasn't pushed the knife up into his brain yet, and...and.." Tuuri gulped, near tears. "And he wants Sigrun to look. Very carefully". The tears began to spill down her cheeks. "Lalli says Mikkel is calling trolls."

Sigrun slid cautiously around the seat to face Mikkel. The big man still looked like himself, no obvious rash, no ... Changes. Wasn't he supposed to be Immune? His face was still; his eyes resigned, weary and desperately sad. With the tip of her blade she gently slit the cloth, then flicked the object into view - a small, battered plaque, just under two inches on a side; crudely carved into a stylised heart shape, deeply incised with a design. The surface of the pale wood had been worn smooth from long contact with Mikkel's skin, and Sigrun could feel the warmth it radiated from where she stood. The little amulet hung on a heavy leather thong, long enough to place it close to his heart. Sigrun didn't know the significance of the thing but could recognise Icelandic runes when she saw them. 

"Tuuri, what is this?" she asked softly. "I don't read Icelandic, but it must mean something".   
"I don't know!" the skald replied, still quietly weeping. She was fond of Mikkel, and seeing him like this tore at her heart. "It's just two letters, M and A, with the stem of the A joined to the upright of the M." 

"I know what that is" came Reynir's nervous voice. Unnoticed, he had slipped around the rest of the crew to where he could see what was happening. "One of my older sisters was handfasted not long before I ..... left home, and her lover gave her something very like it. Only with different runes. For their initials. It's called a bindrune, and it's supposed to let couples who truly love one another always know where the other one is, and how he is. Or she. My sister's man is a mage, but you don't have to be to make one. It's just household magic, like making the cream turn to butter. Any person who can carve runes properly can do it. Even I could make one if I ever have a sweetheart to give it to. Having it sung over by someone with a touch of skyggn makes it work better, though, and my family has that".

"What is he babbling about?" snapped Sigrun impatiently. Tuuri rather shakily translated. Sigrun stepped back a little from Mikkel, still holding his gaze. "All right. Explain this to me. And the explanation had better be a good one, or I'll tell Lalli to lean on that blade. Also, tell me why that thing is glowing such a diseased colour, and how much danger we're all in? Because if that glow means what I think it does, something is following the trail of the magic to you. And to us all. It's getting brighter."

Mikkel sighed deeply,then slumped further in his seat. Lalli tensed against his back, but said nothing more. After a moment Sigrun's intense glare softened. "Very well," she said. "Emil, you stand over there with a rifle. Shoot if Mikkel does anything more than talk. Tuuri, tell your cousin to move away from him, but to stay close and ready. Mikkel, talk to me."

Mikkel sighed again, then began to speak. "Very well," he said. "I believe we have at least the rest of the night. Possibly longer. I had intended to wake you soon and inform you, Sigrun, but Lalli acted first. And quite correctly. However, before I talk about this" - he touched the bindrune carving, almost with a caress - "There's something else I have to tell you. Something that you may think is worse."


	2. A few of Mikkel's secrets - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikkel wants the team to do WHAT?   
> Warning: it's sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iceland of year 90 might be placed rather as the USA is in our world: rich, technologically dominant, but with other economies catching up fast. Sweden, for instance. Human nature being as it is, I'd be surprised if there were not dominance games, politics and intrigue going on. And plots. Yes, I know Scandinavia is supposed to be one big happy surviving family, but where there are differences there will be secrets. And Agents.

Sigrun glared at Mikkel in disbelief.   
"And just what do you suppose we might think was worse than calling trolls?"  
"Well, for a start, I'm an Agent. Of the Nordic Council."  
Emil took a step forward, lifting the rifle, his expression caught between fear and fury. It was a measure of his outrage that he completely ignored Sigrun's get-back gesture.  
"Mikkel, no! How could you?" he raged. "We trusted you!"  
Sigrun, however, looked oddly relieved. "Yeah, I sort of had that figured out by the end of the first week. Only took me so long because I couldn't see why they'd bother attaching a genuine Agent to a little expedition like this. There are only supposed to be, what, a dozen of you all told? Finally I decided it must be because something, or someone, important got left behind in Kastrup, and the Council wanted to know who to blame." 

"No, nobody important" Mikkel said quietly. "At least, not to the Council." He shifted in his seat, causing Emil to step back warily and take a firmer grip on his rifle. "By the way, how did you spot me so quickly?"

"Well, when I was given the names of the expedition members, I asked about you all among people I knew in the military, of course. Nothing exceptional about the kids, just that both the Finns were very good at what they do. And that Emil was the nephew of one of the organisers of the expedition. You have to expect a bit of nepotism." Emil's glare shifted, briefly, to Sigrun.

"Then there was you. More than qualified for the job, but with a long history of being fired for pulling stupid practical jokes, and a reputation for wild love affairs, and for getting out of town just ahead of a deputation of indignant male relatives of the ladies you had - ah...favoured with your attentions. So I was expecting the worst, and was ready to put you down hard the first time you made a move on me or our little skald. But you were a perfect gentleman to both of us, and it wasn't an act - I could tell that much. As for the practical jokes, you didn't do anything, except for that token prank on Prince Precious. Face cancer, heh!" Emil's indignant glare intensified.  
"So, I could see you were a serious, competent person, not at all like your reputation, and I started wondering why someone would bother to build a reputation like that. Once I worked out that it was the perfect cover for a man who often needed to be somewhere else, fast, and couldn't explain why, the answer was obvious."

Mikkel looked chagrined. "Hmm, I shall have to watch that", he murmured. "That is, if any of us survive the next few days." He glanced around at the team, wondering where to begin, and settled on the most urgent matter. "Emil, how are our supplies of explosives and ammunition, just at this moment? Unless we have used far more than I think we have, there should be plenty for what I intend to do. But I'm not quite sure how much you've used in practice, these last few days. I've been .... let's just say I've been a little distracted."

Emil looked to Sigrun. "Should I even answer that? I mean, he's a damned Agent! For all we know, he's the one who sabotaged that big Swedish industrial project..." He broke off as Mikkel laughed bleakly. "Emil, if you had studied much history, you would know that I was eight years old at that time, so no, not that particular incident. However, Sigrun, if you would explain?"

"Emil, any Agent ranks me, so you can and must obey Mikkel's orders" she paused to glance at the glowing amulet "once, that is, I am satisfied that he is in his right mind and not infected or possessed. Now go on, Mikkel. I don't want to be still here arguing when the trolls arrive."

Mikkel sighed. "Not trolls. A giant."  
.................................................................

After a moment of stunned silence, there was a furious babble of questions and exclamations. Even Lalli understood 'giant', and hissed an angry query to his cousin. Tuuri didn't answer, just stared open-mouthed at Mikkel, her face blanching with shock. Sigrun, after an initial few seconds of silence as she absorbed the information, simply nodded. 

"Okay then. A giant. You've been calling a giant. I hope you have a plan for dealing with it? Because if you don't, we are all beyond dead." She shivered. Even Sigrun didn't relish the idea of confronting a giant out in the open, where the thing could move freely and use all of its terrible strength. A giant could move much faster than the tank, and it would crack their vehicle like a nut to get at the meat inside. 

"We have a plan", Mikkel said. "She just needs to keep up the balance between steering the giant in this direction and slowing it down enough that it takes damage from the cold." His face was suddenly haggard, furrowed as if with pain or terrible stress. The glow of the heart amulet flared for a second, then paled. Mikkel breathed raggedly, visibly pulled himself together. "But it's hard for her. She's nearly done, and if her control slips before the giant is damaged enough, we'll be done too." His eyes closed, tracking under the lids as if following movement, opened after a few seconds. "About another five hours, by my estimate. She has been keeping it moving about in the open, trying to lead it far enough from shelter that it can't get back under cover before it freezes, but I doubt she can kill it alone. We should prepare."

"Prepare how? And for what?" Sigrun sounded really angry now. "And who is 'she'? Obviously not Tuuri, she has no idea what this is about. Nor do I. We're the only women here, Mikkel." 

"Not quite. Though I can't really call her a woman any more." There were tears in Mikkel's eyes now, and he sat up abruptly. Emil's finger twitched on the trigger. "My Alma. She's part of that giant. I'm going to kill her, I hope. Along with the rest of the unfortunate souls trapped in there with her." 

He paused, steadying himself. "Alma was one of the Icelandic fighting mages, and a good one. She made this bindrune amulet for me, and another the same for herself, and bound them with a spell, so each of us would know what happened to the other, always. We were lovers. I had hoped we would marry. I had a ring coming in the mail, to propose to her. She was lost and left behind during the last retreat from Kastrup. When this went cold" he touched the amulet, tenderly, "I believed she was dead, and I was grateful for that mercy. A couple of weeks later, the ring arrived. I threw it into the sea. I was going to throw the bindrune after it, but when I went to take it off it was warm again. And glowing, this colour. Not her normal blue. So I knew what had happened to her."

"Since then I've been working for the Council, biding my time. I've reached out to Alma, through the amulets, ever since the defeat at Kastrup, and in the last three years she has begun to answer me. I think she grew stronger as she first integrated into the giant, then worked out how to influence what it did, a little. Maybe having the link to me helped her to hold on to her identity, to some of her sanity; stopped her mind from being submerged and completely overwhelmed. I had a feeling something would bring me back here, sooner or later. Then the Council sent me to join your expedition, for reasons which I will explain at a time when matters are less urgent. I'm truly sorry this happened, but circumstances leave me no choice. I must ask for your help. All of you."

Sigrun considered this for a moment, then made up her mind and gestured to Emil to put the rifle down. He did so, still frowning. "All right. I'm not sure how much of this I believe, and I don't understand any of it. You're the Agent. We'll do it your way. But understand, if you get my team killed because you're mooning over some Icelandic...... " she paused, softening what she had been about to say "I swear I'll haunt you forever!" 

"Agreed!" Mikkel answered, with a shadow of a tired smile. "If I get your team killed, I'll deserve it."

.........................................................

Emil shuddered as the rising icy wind dried the sweat on his body. It was just the chill, he'd faced giants before. He told himself that he wasn't afraid, and knew that he lied. For the last three hours he had been setting sharpened stakes in a crescent around a small gully, a dip in the ground about half a mile outside the moat surrounding the Kastrup Fortet, then burying explosive charges in holes behind the stakes. Once everything else was in place he had soaked the ground inside the crescent with incendiary fluid. Sigrun, Lalli, Mikkel and Emil had dragged the equipment from the tank by hand, after Mikkel had insisted that the sound of an engine might draw the giant before they were ready to deal with it, or stir up other things in the night. By the time everything was in place, all four were on the ragged edge of exhaustion. Now there was nothing to do but wait. After some argument Sigrun had convinced Tuuri that she and Reynir should wait in the tank, staying silent and showing no lights, until morning. Then, if the rest of the team had not returned, they were to make their way to the tunnel, drive as far as they could onto the broken bridge, and radio for help. Mikkel had handed Tuuri a sheaf of papers, with instructions to give them only to Admiral Olsen, and thereafter to answer all his questions -all, he emphasized. 

Now the four waited in the freezing night: Mikkel standing rigid and impassive-faced a little uphill from the centre of the crescent, Sigrun seated on the ground nearby, hugging her knees and hunched against the cold, Emil a little further downhill from Mikkel, nearer his explosives; Lalli circling the others at a distance, alert for anything invisible in the windy darkness. Emil was glad Lalli was out there; he himself hated being outdoors at night, with no idea of what might be creeping up on him.... His thoughts were interrupted by Lalli emerging silently from the dark and laying a hand on Sigrun's arm, then pointing into the blackness before them while making some complicated sign with his other hand, which Sigrun obviously understood. She stood up, stretched and went first to Mikkel, then to Emil, whispering:"About five minutes, straight ahead, coming fast now". She retreated past them and took her place a little higher up the hill, close to where Mikkel stood. Emil wished he had thought to empty his bladder earlier.... well, too late now!

On the other side of the gully, small trees began to toss their branches, then to shatter with a fusillade of sharp snapping noises as the giant began its charge. Frozen in terror, Emil realised that the thing was aware of them now, and was coming straight at them - straight at him, already moving faster than any horse, faster than any machine he had ever seen.... He was jarred from his fugue by a hard grip on his arm. Lalli was shaking him, pointing at the giant, then at Emil's bandolier, and Emil realised that he might have stood there bewildered until the giant ran him down. Already it was only yards from the stakes. 

Emil grabbed wildly for his charges, pulling them sharply against their strikers as he tore them from the bandolier and flung them forward into the mass of the giant. The thing was already shrieking, he realised: dozens of voices screaming in dissonance as the stakes impaled it, tearing at the stiff unnatural flesh, releasing blood and fouler fluids and a sickening, overpowering stench. He ripped another four charges loose, flicked them high so they fell behind the thrashing, snapping horror. Limbs, claws, jaws snatched at him, caught and tore, pulled him closer....

The world exploded, a hollow thump too loud to register as sound, rolling down the slope of the gully like an earthquake.

Higher up the slope, Sigrun was already firing at heads, taking time to make sure of her aim for each shot. She had handed one of the heavier rifles to Mikkel. In answer to his automatic protest she had said only "Cut it out, Agent. You can shoot", and left it at that. Glancing down at him now from her spot slightly higher up the hill, she thought that yes, he certainly could shoot. Not as fast as she was, but more accurate. Sigrun felt the impact through the soles of her feet as the charging giant hit the first stakes, then saw Emil freeze. She swore, started downslope toward him at a run, although she knew it was already far too late to save him; saw Lalli grab his arm, Emil fling the charges......

Things blew up.

Mikkel went down like an axed tree. 

 

Sigrun staggered upright, ears ringing, feeling the shock of the explosion still resonating in her bones like a struck bell. Every muscle would be bruised tomorrow. If any of them lived that long. She picked up her rifle, checked the chamber and limped down the hill. What had happened here, she wondered? She was no Cleanser, but she had worked with enough of them to know roughly what results to expect from which quantities and combinations of their chemicals. That had been a far bigger bang than anything she might have anticipated from the explosives and incendiaries she had seen Emil use. The smoke was clearing enough for her to see movement ahead. She slowed to a cautious walk until she heard Lalli's breathless gasps of "Perkele, perkele, perkele", then pushed herself into a stumbling run. 

Emil lay under an outflung limb of the giant, crusted with earth, blood and other organic debris, his body almost covered by the distorted mass. Lalli was trying to drag the thing off him, with no success. As Sigrun grabbed an edge and tried to haul it off Emil he choked, gagged and began to cough up smoky slime. Her relief that the boy was alive at all was almost overwhelmed by anger at his panic and concern that he might have internal injuries. She could see why Lalli was cursing: the giant overlay Emil's body in such a way as to trap him between it and the upper slope. This limb of the thing was deeply impaled on a dozen stakes. At least that would have slowed it down, Sigrun thought. She had seen the crushing force and whiplash speed of such limbs in combat before, and had no wish to repeat the experience. She hoped this part of the giant was truly dead.

Next to her, two ruined eyes opened.

Sigrun snatched her hand away and grabbed for her knife. Suddenly Lalli was gripping her knife-arm, pushing it up. "Lalli, what.." "Ei!" Damn, the kid was strong for someone so scrawny! "Ei!" Lalli said again. "Sigrun" came Emil's voice, distorted by coughing "I think he means 'No'. He's said that to me before". Ignoring them both once his point was made, the Finnish mage crouched by the huge limb, laying a now-gentle hand on what remained of a woman's face.

The part of the limb lying over Emil began to move. With painful-looking jerks and catches, it retreated, pulling itself back along the stakes, until it no longer held him down. Sigrun grabbed his shoulders and started to drag him clear. Emil tried to help her, scrabbling with hands and elbows for purchase on the muddy slope, slipping on scraps of flesh and nameless fluids. Once his legs were clear of the weight he turned over and began to crawl until Sigrun could haul him upright. Good, she thought; legs not broken, spine working - he should survive, let all the Gods be thanked. Once Emil was on his feet she unhooked his rifle from its harness and slapped it into his hands. 

"You watch that nothing eats Lalli while he's doing his mage stuff" she snarled. "I'll see what happened to Mikkel. And I put you on notice now that I will be speaking to you later about this, Cleanser Västerström." Emil nodded and obeyed, taking a stance with his back to the slope, staring in bewilderment as Lalli spoke briefly in Finnish to the thing - the woman - he was touching. Emil watched Lalli sit for a moment, his head cocked to one side as if he were listening to a reply, though the young Cleanser could hear nothing. 

Lalli began to sing. Not a runo, Emil thought. No formal patterned spell, but a drifting musical murmur that reminded him of bees in a summer garden, of water lipping sleepily against a sunny river bank, of barely remembered lullabyes from his own childhood.... As his knees started to buckle, Emil realised what it was that he was hearing, jerked himself back to the guard position from which he had begun to topple forward, and watched with a grief and pity which he had never expected to feel for one of the monsters as Lalli went about his work. The woman's eyes drifted shut. Then, to Emil's alarm, Lalli leaned back against the giant's limb and fell asleep.

Lalli let go of his body with relief. After a blank interval which might have been seconds or centuries, he woke on the raft in his own haven, and looked up at the woman seated comfortably beside him on the weathered boards. "Thank you" she said, "and thank you for doing it so gently. I had not expected that." Her voice was a deep contralto. "Also for trusting me here. We are so vulnerable when we sleep, and it can be hard to trust a stranger."

"You're not really a stranger. I've watched Mikkel. I know the shape of the empty space in his spirit. He's a good man, even if he has done terrible things. What do you want me to tell him? I'm allowed to, for heroes. You saved Emil, diving onto those stakes to slow the giant, and covering him with your body. And even trapped as you were in the giant, you used the last of your magic to finish it off and save the rest of us. I saw what you did, back there. With the explosives. Even when you knew you'd die of it too."

"Heroes!" Alma laughed briefly. "After the last ten years, all I wanted was to get free." She shuddered. "But I learned things, and what I learned I can show to another mage."  
Lalli nodded, looking worried. "I'd rather you told my cousin Onni. He's more of a mage than I am. But there's not time, and I can't summon him from so far away. It will have to be me. I'm sorry. Show me."

She did.

While his mind still reeled and echoed from the impact, Alma stood and stretched. The shape of her soul was beautiful, Lalli thought, but the form it wore now was what her body had looked like, before. Alma had not been a pretty woman, but the body had been tall, healthy and robust, with kind eyes in a merry face. She and Mikkel would have fitted well together.   
Alma turned to him, her expression now a little sad.   
"Yes, give Mikkel a message from me" she said. "He knows I love him. Tell him I'll look for him again, next time around. But he is NOT to die yet. When the time comes for that, he'll know." She held out her hand to Lalli, her own bindrune amulet stretched across her palm. "Take it. You know what to do." She turned and stepped out through the boundary. Lalli watched her fade as she walked away across the dark starlit water.

................................................................

A FEW OF MIKKEL'S SECRETS: EPILOGUE:

Sigrun hammered on the door a little after dawn. 

Tuuri drove the tank to where Mikkel lay on the slope, above the gully where a charred giant was already beginning to deliquesce. While Reynir put together a meal for those who could eat, and boiled water and prepared chemicals for decontamination under Sigrun's direction, Tuuri wandered cautiously about the area, her breathmask fastened firmly and wearing what protective clothing she could find, taking photographs and making notes. She heard the story in bits and scraps from the others, and wondered what Mikkel would tell her if - no, when - he woke. 

Tuuri watched her cousin as he worked over Mikkel, the two bindrune amulets in his hands. From time to time he would whisper a runo. Mostly he sat rigid in concentration, occasionally stroking one amulet or the other as he unbound the subtle links between Mikkel and the giant. About noon Mikkel finally showed signs of consciousness, tossing and moaning. Lalli left his further care to Emil, and stumbled away to sleep under Tuuri's bunk. 

Tuuri wondered what to do with the papers Mikkel had left with her. She had read them, of course, in case the papers themselves should be destroyed. She prided herself on her trained memory, and considered it part of her duty to see that information was not lost. 

Tuuri wondered why nobody else seemed to remember that Mikkel had never actually told them why he had been assigned to this expedition. She intended to find out.


	3. Three days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigrun Eide has lost her scout. I haven't killed Lalli, I promise! But just at the moment he is taking orders from someone other than the expedition leader.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written Reynir as a bit more useful than he has so far appeared to be in canon, because he's a sheep herder. Now in the past a shepherd on a back-country Scandinavian farm did not just gaze at the sheep and pose ornamentally, or sit about playing his rustic pipes and composing classical odes to Daphne's left eyebrow, whatever the romantic poets say! He or she (and yes, women might do the same job) was expected to be a competent and useful member of the farm community. That meant not just watching the sheep but actively looking after them: rescuing the silly creatures if they fell into a ravine or got stuck in a gorse bush, defending them from predatory animals or human thieves (that's one of the many things the traditional crook, staff or thumbstick was for); watching the animals for diseases; tending injured sheep, patching them up if possible, killing them humanely if not, and salvaging what could be salvaged. A shepherd might also spin loose wool on a drop spindle, knit, carve or do similar crafts. It was his responsibility, in cold or mountainous areas, to make sure that refuge huts were maintained and had fuel and food supplies. He would check farm boundaries; keep an eye on changes in the weather, both for deciding where next to take the sheep and to carry warnings to the settlements; mend hedges and other stock-barriers; watch for lost children or travelers, give the farms and settlements warning of dangerous intruders, and do a bit of foraging for such things as nuts, wild berries and useful dye-plants and medicinal herbs in his copious spare time.
> 
> So I figured that however impulsive and flit-minded the lad might be in the matter of escaping from his smothering home environment, he must have at least the basic competencies of a back-country farmer, or his family wouldn't have let him be a sheep-herder. Sheep are valuable. And I presume he is learning some magic by this point in the expedition, and possibly combining it with his existing practical knowledge.
> 
> In the Iceland of our time a lot of practical ancestral how-to knowledge is still in the culture, not too deeply buried; everything from traditional fabric crafts to rune-magic as folk art. I would expect at least some of this to have survived to Year 90, and likely to be developed and researched as people came to realise that there would be no outside rescue, and they had only such resources as were already on the island. Printed copies of the sagas may still be around in Y 90, even if none of the people who in our time know them by heart have survived. 
> 
> The healing runes carved into a thumbnail and sung or spoken over is also a thing in our world. It's in several of the sagas, including Egil's.
> 
> There are a couple of my headcanon assumptions here that are not in the SSSS canon, but which will do until the main story contradicts them:
> 
> • Reynir's dad suspects or knows that he is himself a mage, and maybe that his youngest son is also. He is trying to deny or conceal this, but can't always refuse to use what he has, if, for example, using it may save a life. He tries to pass it off as just household magic which anyone can do by carving runes.
> 
> • If you can be hurt or killed in the dreamworld, you can be healed there. 
> 
> • The little pocket universes in which the mages sleep or take refuge are in some measure alive and aware, and protective of their mages. Think Baba Yaga's hut, or the island where Koschei the Deathless kept his heart, or Mananaan's Tower, or any Faery rath in the folklore of our world. 
> 
> I've cut this chapter off a little early, because I don't want to blow the ending by revealing who the remaining characters are until the last chapter.
> 
> And however it may seem in this episode, I haven't killed Lalli. Truly.

Her scout had been missing for three days now, and Sigrun Eide was frantic. She hadn't given up on Lalli, not yet; she was prepared to accept his cousin's 'feeling' that he was still alive. Tuuri had told her that ever since she, Onni and Lalli had been children, each of them had known if something was very wrong with the others. She had explained that many Finnish families were like that, especially if some of the family were mageborn. Now the young skald said that she could still feel Lalli's henki, his breath and spirit, but that somehow it 'felt wrong'. What that might mean, neither of them knew. Tuuri remembered experiencing similar sensations before, times that Lalli had been hurt or ill, but this didn't feel quite the same as either. And since the dream, she had been certain that wherever her cousin might be, he was deep in trouble.

In other circumstances Sigrun would have taken Emil and gone to search for the scout, but not with things the way they were in the team at present, and with the weather growing steadily worse. Something had to be done, though. Soon. 

Several times in the last six weeks Lalli had taken longer than usual to come back to their camp in the old Kastrup Fortet. The first time he had spent a night and the following early morning hiding in the roof space of an old house, wrapped in spells of concealment and misdirection, while a small but ravenous giant turned over the area he had been scouting. He made his way back to the camp late the next day, having an easy run because most of the smaller monsters of that suburb had been consumed by the giant to fuel its first growth spurt or had been frightened away. 

Twice since then he had been drawn beyond his normal range, miles north and west of the region he was meant to be exploring, following what he thought were traces of human magic. He couldn't say how old those traces were, so Sigrun had decided not to divert attention from their two main missions. On the second of these diversions away from the city he had been caught by a sleet-storm and had made it back to camp after two and a half days, hypothermic and hungry. Mikkel had insisted he rest for a couple of days after that, and Sigrun had banned him from making further explorations in that direction. Lalli had said nothing at the time, though he seemed frustrated by her orders. He confided to Tuuri that he 'felt other people' out there, but couldn't explain more, other than that it seemed important to him to find them. He had asked her not to bother the others about it yet, not until he was more certain of who or what he could sense. Tuuri assumed that he meant other healthy people rather than trolls, unlikely as that seemed, and she had intended to discuss the possibility further with him and with Mikkel, but before she could do so the thing with Alma had happened. The team had been far too busy to talk about Lalli's explorations in the hours before that event, and in the confusion and distress of the days that followed it had slipped her mind. 

There was probably little point in talking to Mikkel at present anyway. They had destroyed the Giant while Mikkel was fully linked into it through Alma, his old love who had been absorbed after the rout of Kastrup. He had shared her death. Or all the deaths, if you considered the Giant as its component parts. Lalli had managed to unbind the links before Mikkel had been drawn completely away from his body, and while he seemed to be recovering physically from the experience, the process was slow. The state of his mind worried Tuuri more. The healer spent a lot of time just staring into space and sighing occasionally. He ate little, slept less, and scarcely spoke at all. Sigrun had yelled at him and Emil had tried a clumsy pep-talk. Mikkel had ignored both. Tuuri herself had tried sympathy and comfort, which had briefly jarred Mikkel out of his lethargy into rage, but he seemed too weary and soul-sick to sustain even anger for long. Reynir hadn't talked to him at all, although they had a common language; just tried to ensure that the healer remembered to eat sometimes. Then Lalli, one evening a few days before he vanished, had taken Tuuri aside, explaining that he had something important he needed to tell Mikkel, and asked her to translate. At first he had ignored them too, staring blankly, until Lalli laid a hand on Mikkel's brow and delivered what felt to Tuuri more like the crackling aura of a lightning bolt than an ordinary pulse of magic. The healer had shuddered and yelped in pain, but after that his eyes had cleared and he had at least listened as Tuuri translated Lalli's account of Alma's death and departure. Including her order to Mikkel not to let himself die, just yet. The big man had said nothing, only turned his face to the wall. Near dawn, Tuuri had been woken by muffled sobbing, the hard racking grief of a man who does not normally permit himself to weep: Mikkel trying his best not to wake the others, burying his face in the pillow with the blankets pulled over his head. Tuuri heard Sigrun's breathing change as she woke, heard the Captain murmur "Oh, good, about time". Then Tuuri listened for an hour, her heart aching for her friend, while Mikkel wept as quietly as he was able and the others pretended to sleep, allowing him such privacy as the narrow confines of the tank permitted. 

The next day he seemed somehow more present, still not saying much but looking as if he at least perceived what was happening around him. The morning after that Lalli had failed to return from scouting.

*****************************************

Halfway between midnight and dawn on the second night of her cousin's absence, Tuuri woke from a screaming nightmare. As she slammed awake she realised that she was half off the bunk and tangled in her bedding, and that the weight on her chest was Emil trying to hold her down. As she tried to take control of her thrashing body Tuuri realised that what she had been shrieking as she woke was "Lalli! No!" The dream faded too quickly for her mind to hold onto as she woke fully, but she retained a memory of a shock of impact followed by shattering agony; of darkness split by noise and points of fire; of screaming; of a mind spiraling away...... Then the contact broke as Sigrun slapped her - hard. "Shut up shut up shut up" the captain hissed "unless you want to alert every troll and beast in Kastrup!" Tuuri grabbed for the fading shred of memory. It slid like water from her mind, and was lost. 

But Lalli was - he must be - still alive. Surely? 

Emil sat by her for the rest of the night, holding her hand. After a while she dozed again, waking at intervals. At one such moment she realised that Mikkel had joined Emil by her bunk and was talking to him softly. Reassured, she drifted back into sleep until full daylight.

In the morning she told the others about the dream. At first the Norwegian captain had been inclined to dismiss her concerns, but Tuuri was emphatic that such a dream had significance to a Finn, especially when it involved someone who was both a mage and a kinsman. To her surprise Mikkel backed her, explaining that he, unlike Sigrun, had worked with Finnish mages before, and had seen such things happen. What the team might do about their missing member was another matter. 

Tuuri wished desperately that her brother were here. Onni might have used his magic to search for his young cousin, but in Lalli's absence she had no way even to try to contact him. Or..... was that altogether true? 

"Reynir?" She turned to the Icelandic youth. "Could you find Lalli with your magic? He told me that you walked into his Haven once without being invited." Even in this situation her normally cheerful face wore a disapproving frown at his lapse of manners. "Or could you contact Onni? I know you guys have been meeting in the Dreamworld while they try to teach you civilised behaviour." Reynir looked disturbed at this interpretation of his interactions with the two Finnish mages, but replied: "I'm.... not sure. I can try. I think I can find the places again, but Lalli's Haven really hates me. Bad first impression, I suppose. I'll try for Lalli now, but I can only find the Havens when I'm asleep. Or tranced. But the others haven't taught me how to do that properly, yet." 

He closed his eyes briefly, relaxing his body and extending his senses as Lalli had taught him. After a few minutes he opened his eyes, stretched and shook his head. "I'm sorry! All I can feel of Lalli is that he's somewhere west and a bit north of here. A long way. Miles. And he isn't in his body." At Tuuri's frightened expression he hurried to add: "Oh, no; I don't mean that he's dead or anything! He's still breathing. Just.... I don't know. Really deeply asleep? Unconscious? He feels - wrong. I don't have the words. But we have to find him!" Reynir leapt to his feet as if ready to dash out that instant, but Mikkel gestured to him to sit again, and said: "No. First we have to explain all this to Sigrun."

*********************************************

That first night, Lalli had been heading for the old airport, intending to explore the area further now that there was no longer a resident Giant, and before too many new trolls or beasts moved in to fill that void. He was running smoothly in the rainy darkness; not pushing too hard yet; the map in his head constantly updating as he noted small changes in the landscape. It was a good night for exploring, he thought: cold and bleak enough to keep most of the rash creatures out of his way, not so cold as to be dangerous to him as long as he kept moving, and a day after moondark. The cloud layer did not block his awareness of the white sliver of moon hanging above the horizon, and his heart lifted as he sent a thought to his Lady.

His steady pace faltered at the force of the reply.

Before he had time even to form the thought clearly, he had turned in the length of a stride and was racing west.

************************************************

"I can't go searching for Lalli, much as I want to!" Sigrun growled. "I'm the Captain of this blighted expedition, so I have to stay where I can communicate with the Base. You know we tried calling them earlier, and the black noise was so bad we couldn't get them for more than thirty seconds, and then I got some fool who told me the Admiral was away! Away! As if he could go anywhere.... Trond and the Admiral would skin me alive if I abandoned the mission, left these kids unprotected and went haring off into the unmapped wilderness searching for one scout who may be already dead. I'm sorry, Tuuri. But you know I'm right. Even if you and Reynir are right and he is still alive at this moment, it will take whoever goes at least a day to travel to where you think he is. Likely longer. Assuming you can even find him. We don't know what is in between here and there - there could be anything! And even if the grosslings don't get him in the meantime.... Look, you two think he's lying out there somewhere, wounded, probably unconscious. It's cold, and getting colder. If he's in shelter, that raises the chance some troll or beast will find him. If not, and if he doesn't freeze, well....there are still some ordinary animals out there, and at this season they'll be hungry enough to attack a wounded human. That's just how it is."

Tuuri, Emil and Reynir started up together in protest as if they had choreographed the movement. Three outraged faces turned to the Captain.   
"Sigrun, you can't just abandon my only cousin!"  
"But he's one of the team! And my friend! I.....We can't do without him!"   
" Er... If you'll let me, I could go?"

Mikkel's deep tones cut across the three young voices, suddenly firm and decisive. "No! If the lad is still alive, he'll need a Healer. I'm going. With Reynir."

Captain Sigrun Eide turned her face away to hide a small smile.

"Very well." Sigrun kept her voice hard, her expression grim. "If you left now most of the trip would be in the dark, so you will go early tomorrow. You'll need to pack, then sleep. I'll wake you a few hours before dawn. Find him if you can."

Reynir Árnason slept, and dreamed.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES ON CHAPTER FOUR OF ‘A FEW OF MIKKEL’S SECRETS’
> 
>  
> 
> I’m back! With a new (well, new to me) tablet and a bit of help from my beloved with the recalcitrant posting process, here, finally, is Chapter Four: only two years late! If nothing else goes wrong, I hope to post chapters regularly again, and also to put up on Archive of our Own some of the other stories of mine that have been lurking in the Scriptorium and in various exchanges over the last couple of years. Most of them have, of course, been thoroughly jossed long ago, because they date from much earlier in the storyline, so they can be considered AUs. Well, except for the '1,000 years in the future’ thing I wrote for LooNEY - who knows what that is?
> 
> As you may have gathered from the story so far, Mikkel has several layers of secrets. And his own agenda. But then, so do the old gods, the landspirits, and several different groups of mad scientists. It’s complicated. 
> 
> It has long been my headcanon that if humans can be infected by a semi-magical disease, so can the material, semi-material and selectively material among the earth-things and landspirits: all the little creatures of folklore, dwarves and hobs and kobolds, piskies and mimi and the People of Lupra, depending where they are in the world.
> 
> Oh, and remember back in the library at the first site the team raided, that fellow with the bullet hole in his hazmat suit, the journal Lalli found which so interested Mikkel, and the book of which Emil enquired whether the title was even words……?

AND NOW, CHAPTER FOUR OF ‘A FEW OF MIKKEL’S SECRETS’

Lalli ran through the silent, icy night. The camp and his team-mates were far behind. Ahead of him the land rose steeply. He slowed a little as he reached the rising ground, settling into the long-distance lope he could keep up for hours if he needed to. The moon of the world had set long ago, yet he ran in moonlight, as heedless of his normal caution as of the dangerous landscape through which he moved, fey with the touch of his Lady. For that brief and glorious while he felt no fear.

Images of foresight boiled in his mind as he ran - vehicles he didn't recognise, soldiers, weapons, weird machinery. Faces, mostly strange, and a few familiar ones. An ancient stone tower, perhaps that of an old church of the White Christ, weathered and battered but with the top of the tower showing patches of lighter-coloured new stonework. Dark trees rising behind it. Under the trees, small spindly shapes were moving. Maahiset? Startled, he tried to focus more closely on that image. Yes, maahiset. But this was a thing he had never seen before - maahiset both new and old, in the same place? As he had observed many times both among the forests and lakes of Saimaa and later in the wild areas near Keuruu, the two kinds normally went to desperate lengths to avoid each other. Among the trees close to the building, the small Rash-creatures seethed and crawled over one another, their attention on the structure and whatever was within it. But further back in the woods, crouched in concealment under protecting roots and stones, were numbers of the ancient maahiset, the old clean earth-creatures from before the Rash, from before the time of humans, silent and still, watching the watchers.

And even further back in the forest, one huge distorted shape sheltered from the freezing night in deep brushwood. It lay perfectly still, wrapped in its armour of magic and illusion. Listening. Waiting. Aware of him as he was aware of it.

Long before dawn he reached the area of young forest in which the tower stood. There had been a small town here once, he thought; perhaps an outlier of the bigger town he could sense just to the southwest, or possibly an older village. Yet the looming danger he felt seemed to emanate only from the infected maahiset and the huge thing on the far side of the tower. He could perceive no trace of any beast or troll among the slumping ruins. Lalli understood what that meant, why every other rash-creature or clean animal had fled the area. He knew what hid in the forest less than a mile from him, and tried not to give way to blind terror at the thought: a Giant formed from the rampant overgrowth of a single troll. Giants were rare compared to other grosslings, and these were the rarest of all giants. They were also the most deadly. Where more usual giants were to some extent shaped - and confused - by the dozens or hundreds of minds and bodies that formed them, under the overall domination of the Rash, the few Singles were the product of minds strong enough to fight the Rash to a standstill or even to dominate that malign intelligence, or else they had originally been individuals so evil or so completely self-obsessed as to cooperate with it. These were true monsters: well coordinated because they were free of the constant struggle with unwilling component bodies and minds, unusually intelligent, and utterly focused on their own intent. And this one had not only mind, but magic. Lalli shuddered at the thought of trying to deal with it alone. 

Nearer the building he could make out the stubby posts of a proximity alarm system, and feel the almost subliminal buzzing that indicated the system was active. No lights or movement showed from the tower. So, people came here, people with enough technology to set up alarms, and enough sense to show no light or heat signatures at night. He wondered what they planned to do, here in the hostile depths of the Silent World.

As he stopped to catch his breath and gaze at the structure he felt a change: the Presence that had strengthened his body and guided his steps drew slowly away. He sighed as the weight and weariness of his flesh and the sensations of cold and fear became real again. A parting touch reminded him of the images his mind still held, and of what he needed to do. Lalli whimpered under his breath, then found his courage again as his Lady smiled in his mind. After all, he thought, with her protection the worst that could happen to him was no more than death. The young mage squared his slender shoulders and set out to find shelter for the day. 

 

************************************************  
"DON'T YOU DARE JUST IGNORE ME, YOU CRAZY OLD BAT! I TELL YOU THERE IS SOMETHING OUT THERE, DAMN YOU!"

"Keep it down or you'll bring every grossling from here to Roskilde down on our heads, you fool! If we can somehow get this hiisi-ridden contraption functioning again I still plan to do the test in the morning. We have to see if the repairs worked, whether there's something out there or not. Which I doubt, in the middle of winter! Godsdamnit, this messing about with magic and machinery together just makes me crazy! It was a bad idea in the first place, and I never asked to be put in charge of this piece of ramlatch foolishness! Shut up and let the techs work!"

The old man stamped out, grumbling to himself. The woman at whom he had been shouting growled under her breath and turned to the group of young people standing by - a nervous junior mage-technician and a half-dozen cringing skalds and mechanics. She took in their alarmed expressions - one young man seemed ready to cry, and all of them looked pale and shocked - and moderated her own tone. "Don't pay any attention to his nonsense. He just doesn't want to walk back! Or swim back, now." She showed them an encouraging smile. "But I know we can do it! Here, let me see that last set of test results again." 

Patiently, she set about coaxing her technical team back into a frame of mind in which they might possibly accomplish something.

************************************************

 

From his sheltered spot in the tangled crown of an old beech tree Lalli watched the outline of the tower as the dawn light grew stronger. He nibbled on a few of the bitter beechnuts and a strip of dried meat from one of his pockets while he waited for full daylight. Something about the top of the building puzzled him, and it was worth losing a little rest to see if anything became clearer once the sun was up. He was almost ready to give up and sleep when a grinding noise from the tower top jerked him back into full alertness. As he stared wide-eyed the tower roof split along its middle and began to tilt upward like the two halves of an opening shell. Light poured up from the gap, brighter than the cloudy dawn, then cut off abruptly as something rose through the opened roof, wobbling a little as it lifted above the building. 

Lalli cowered in his nest of tangled branches and tried to make himself too small and still to be noticed. Whatever this thing was, it was unlike anything the scout had seen before. It was circular, as thick as the cat-tank was tall, perhaps thirty feet across, with the rim made up of alternate bands of what looked like metal and dark glass. It lifted without a sound, and hung some twenty feet above the old tower like a dragonfly hovering over a pond. Then, without warning, it began to vibrate, giving off a sound that climbed in seconds from a low bass rumble to a shrill screech that made his teeth ache. Shouts rose from the space under the opening as the strange - machine, he supposed it must be - sank back below the roofline, making a hollow metallic clang as it grazed the stone. As soon as the thing had sunk below the edge the two valves began to pull back into place with more grinding noises, and in minutes nothing unusual could be seen. The air held a sharp unfamiliar tang, almost a sea smell, as well as the more familiar scents of metal and lubricants and dust.

It was a long while until Lalli slept. The weird hovering thing with its alien scent and strange appearance was bad enough. The aura of unfamiliar magic that wrapped it was worse. Strangest of all had been those shouting voices, here in the Silent World. Both were voices he knew, and one of them had been swearing. Inventively and at length. In Finnish.

*************************************************

A little before sunset the fading light and sharpening cold roused Lalli from an uneasy doze. His nest in the beech crown was comfortable enough, but he had been woken several times during the day by weird sounds from the tower: metal clanging on metal; a loud hissing noise he could not identify; more metallic banging noises followed by the same vibration he had heard earlier, ascending in pitch until cut off by a louder noise that sounded like metal hitting stone, followed by a high-pitched scream that ceased abruptly, then a deep male voice bellowing what had to be profanities, in a language he couldn't name. He thought it sounded a bit like whatever tongue it was that their Captain spoke. And even during the day he had sensed some of the more light-hardy of the infected maahiset moving about in the woods, sliding from shadow to shadow, circling the building as daylight began to fail.

He stretched stiff muscles, careful to keep low enough to be unseen from below, drank sparingly from his flask of water, and slid silently down the tree into the gathering darkness. 

 

**************************************************  
Lalli almost fell over the small earth-thing before he saw it. Mud-brown and gnarled like an old root, it crouched at the foot of the beech tree, waiting for him. The scent of the creature, like sweet-gale and warm stone, told him it was clean of disease, and the wide silver eyes, blinking in the dusk, reassured him. He had hastily drawn his knife when he realised that he was not alone, and now sheathed it, not wanting to frighten a possible ally, and knelt down to hear what it had to say. As a young boy he had played with such creatures, on the Saimaa lake islands; it warmed his heart to know that some of them survived here as well. 

Its whispering voice was even softer than his own. He knew a little of that prehuman speech, enough to ask if it understood his own Finnish tongue, and to understand by its reply that it did not. When it reached out a hand he grasped the long, twiglike fingers without hesitation, and followed it into the deepening night.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued....


End file.
